Clause 197
Marine and Coastal Access Bill [Lords]
12:45 pm
Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)
Before the Minister goes into the detail of these amendments, which I of course look forward to hearing, will he confirm that his Department gave the Shellfish Association of Great Britain just two hours to comment on these proposals before they were due to be tabled last week? Clearly, the SAGB is a very important body to be consulted, because it shared the Government’s concern on this issue. He is about to go into a lot of detail on these amendments, but to give an important stakeholder—I hope that the hon. Member for Newbury does not mind my using that term—only two hours in which to comment on them was clearly insufficient. I know that the SAGB was not particularly happy about that.